Due to the low resolution of the occlusion buffer, small gaps between occluders can be closed and incorrectly occlude instances which should show through the gaps. To ameliorate this problem, this PR jitters the occlusion buffer over time, making it more likely an instance will be seen through a gap. This is used in conjunction with an occlusion timer per instance, to prevent instances flickering on and off rapidly.
As many open source projects have started doing it, we're removing the
current year from the copyright notice, so that we don't need to bump
it every year.
It seems like only the first year of publication is technically
relevant for copyright notices, and even that seems to be something
that many companies stopped listing altogether (in a version controlled
codebase, the commits are a much better source of date of publication
than a hardcoded copyright statement).
We also now list Godot Engine contributors first as we're collectively
the current maintainers of the project, and we clarify that the
"exclusive" copyright of the co-founders covers the timespan before
opensourcing (their further contributions are included as part of Godot
Engine contributors).
Also fixed "cf." Frenchism - it's meant as "refer to / see".
Implement built-in classes Vector4, Vector4i and Projection.
* Two versions of Vector4 (float and integer).
* A Projection class, which is a 4x4 matrix specialized in projection types.
These types have been requested for a long time, but given they were very corner case they were not added before.
Because in Godot 4, reimplementing parts of the rendering engine is now possible, access to these types (heavily used by the rendering code) becomes a necessity.
**Q**: Why Projection and not Matrix4?
**A**: Godot does not use Matrix2, Matrix3, Matrix4x3, etc. naming convention because, within the engine, these types always have a *purpose*. As such, Godot names them: Transform2D, Transform3D or Basis. In this case, this 4x4 matrix is _always_ used as a _Projection_, hence the naming.
Added an occlusion culling system with support for static occluder meshes.
It can be enabled via `Project Settings > Rendering > Occlusion Culling > Use Occlusion Culling`.
Occluders are defined via the new `Occluder3D` resource and instanced using the new
`OccluderInstance3D` node. The occluders can also be automatically baked from a
scene using the built-in editor plugin.
